Chronic Wasting Disease A Symptom Of Bigger Problem In Norway

Reindeer Canaries In A Coal Mine

Norway and the greater Scandinavian region are experiencing some of the highest rates of neurodegenerative diseasein the world. The human epidemic is fueling a related epidemic among wildlife. Norway will slaughter hundreds of reindeer to tackle a mere symptom of a bigger problem. Mismanagement is pouring fuel on the fire in Norway and North America.

As explained below, many forms of neurodegenerative disease are infectious and contagious. In fact, many are known as transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE). The operative word is “transmissible.” Norway’s sick reindeer are canaries in a coal mine and we all should pay attention.

Studies confirm that people and animals dying of TSE contaminate the environment around them with deadly prions (PREE-on), which are in the urine, feces, blood, mucus and saliva of each victim. Victims are contagious long before they appear sick. Prions don’t die because they aren’t alive. Prions migrate, mutate, multiply and kill with unparalleled efficiency. That’s why Norway wants to kill hundreds of reindeer—to keep them from generating and spreading infectious fluids. Meanwhile, Norway’s plan ignores a greater prion threat—they dump tons of infectious waste from humans on open spaces, farms and forests.

The infected bodily fluids from millions of humans have turned wastewater treatment plants into incubators and distributors of deadly prions. Since Norway dumps about 90 percent of its sewage sludge on open spaces, this infectious waste is fueling a public health disaster. Norway and most other countries are recycling an aggressive brain disease back into the food chain with every load of sewage sludge dumped on forests, crops, parks and gardens. Millions of people are caught in the crossfire. So are reindeer and other mammals.

A prion is a deadly and unstoppable form of protein. Dr. Stanley Prusiner, an American neuroscientist from the University of California at San Francisco, earned a Nobel Prize in 1997 for discovering and characterizing prions and prion disease. President Obama honored Prusiner with the National Medal of Science in 2010. Unfortunately, Prusiner’s science is being ignored and we’re facing a public health disaster because of the negligence and the mismanagement of infectious waste.

Prusiner claims that all TSEs are caused by prions. He says that all TSEs are on the prion disease spectrum. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) is at the extreme end of the spectrum and is highly infectious. It’s often misdiagnosed as Alzheimer’s disease, which is lower on the prion disease spectrum. Norway estimates that only half of its citizens with neurodegenerative disease are being diagnosed and even fewer are treated. Despite under-reporting, it’s still a top nation for Alzheimer’s disease.

TSEs also include mad cow disease (BSE) in cattle and chronic wasting disease (CWD) in deer. Few, if any, mammals are immune. There is no species barrier. Prions don’t discriminate.

CWD has ravaged deer, elk and moose in many regions across North America since it was first identified at a Colorado State University research facility in the 1960s. Now, CWD is in Norway’s reindeer and moose, which blows holes in the theories and containment plans across North America. Suffice it to say, sick deer didn’t jump the Atlantic Ocean, which means that other prion pathways are at work. These sick mammals are a canary in the proverbial coal mine. Although there are several ways for CWD to take hold and spread, government and stakeholders are ignoring the biggest prion pathway in the world—human sewage.

When the U.S. government enacted the Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002, it included a provision to halt research on prions in all but two laboratories. It classified prions as select agents that pose an extreme risk to food, water and more. It was a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, industry pressure convinced the Center For Disease Control to quietly take prions off the list of special agents a few years ago. Keeping prions listed threatened to outlaw several multi-billion dollar industries, including the biosolids and wastewater reclamation industries. This reversal kept the floodgates open to the prion threat. Especially regarding sewage, agriculture and water reclamation industries.

Because of prion dynamics, Canada declared CWD unstoppable. On the present path, they’re right. Especially when we dump tons of infectious waste on farms, ranches, in forests and beyond every day. Other mammals are contracting the disease from humans and they proceed to infect each other through their own bodily fluids.

Human sewage alone is a deadly cocktail, but wastewater treatment plants also receive tons of infectious waste from slaughterhouses, dental offices, clinics, hospitals, morgues, nursing homes, veterinarians and many other industrial sources. If it flushes, it’s in the waste stream. If it flushes, it’s being recycled on public and private land and throughout our watersheds. Such thinking is recycling brain disease and contributing to the surge in autism.

According to neuroscientist Laura Manuelidis, at least 25 percent of Alzheimer’s diagnoses are wrong. These misdiagnoses are actually CJD, which is further up the prion spectrum. CJD, without dispute, is extremely infectious to caregivers, loved ones and entire communities. It’s drastically misdiagnosed and under-reported, which means that millions of highly infective people don’t even know that they have prion disease. Their caregivers don’t know it. Their families are not cautioned about transmissibility.